It’s that time of year again: Oscar season, when many filmmakers roll out their favorites in hopes of catching the attention of the Academy. So, with the smell of “classic filmmaking” in the air, I wanted to roll out a list of MY favorite movies — films that make real stories from art history exciting and engaging to a movie-going audience.
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The Agony and the Ecstasy
Oh come on, you knew I’d start with Michelangelo. Sweaty and angsty Charlton Heston plays the artist as he struggles to paint the Sistine Ceiling and battles his temperamental patron, Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison). Based on Irving Stone’s bestselling novel, it’s one of those epic Hollywood histories. If you haven’t watched it, stop reading this, and dial it up. Right now.
Frida
Selma Hayek is painter and feminist icon, Frida Kahlo in this Academy Award-winning biopic. This film chronicles her tempestuous love affairs (including with her husband, painter Diego Rivera) AND her relentless drive to revolutionize the politics, art, and sex of her times. Directed by brilliant filmmaker Julie Taymor, not only is this a film about a great artist, it’s a great piece of art in and of itself.
Pollock
Starring Ed Harris as legendary abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock and Marcia Gay Harden as his painter wife Lee Krasner, this movie explores the extraordinary lengths some artists will go to break through creative barriers. It dives deep into the relationship between Pollock and Krasner, and explores the demons that drove Jackson Pollock to change the world of art forever.
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Based on Tracy Chevalier’s novel by the same name, starring Colin Firth as the Dutch Old Master Vermeer and Scarlett Johansson as his muse (and subject of one of his most famous paintings), this is a good-ole bodice-ripper, in the best sense of the phrase. If you want to see the creation of a masterpiece not through the eyes of the painter but through its subject, you can’t go wrong with this blockbuster.
Mr. Turner
Starring Timothy Spall as the eccentric 19th century British painter JMW Turner, this is one of my all-time favorite biopics about a real-life artist. It’s deep and detailed, sometimes dark and strange, but explores one of the most brilliant minds in all of art history. Any artist who straps himself to the mast of a ship so he can learn how to paint a storm deserves a movie to himself, doesn’t he?
Loving Vincent
This film was painted—yes PAINTED—in the style of Vincent Van Gogh. It is positively gorgeous, as it brings Vincent’s life and work into full, gleaming, moving color. If you have a chance to see it on the big screen, run don’t walk to the theater. It’s an epic film worthy of Vincent’s art and heart.
Moulin Rouge!
This Baz Luhrmann-directed musical masterpiece dives deep into the absinthe-fueled, Belle Epoque Paris of post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at, where-else, but the Montmartre dance house staple, the Moulin Rouge! (Love it or hate it, starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, this is definitely a “must-see” movie)
Monuments Men
This is an action drama about an unlikely group of soldiers/art nerds tasked with rescuing famous masterpieces from the Nazis during World War II. It’s a fun, action-packed movie starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and others that has audiences breathlessly chasing down a Michelangelo and other masterpieces.
Woman in Gold
This is another World War II art-theft film, starring Helen Mirren as a Jewish refugee who goes on a quest to recover art work that was stolen from her family by the Nazis, including Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Based on fascinating, real-life history, this is the story of one woman not only fighting to restore what was stolen from her family, but also fighting for a sense of order and justice in a chaotic world.
Lust for Life
I end back where I began, with another Irving Stone classic perfect for Hollywood. This one stars Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh. Like the Agony and Ecstasy before it, this film gives us some of our most enduring legends about Vincent — the artist who was an outcast during his lifetime only to be one of the most popular and beloved artists after his death.
What are YOUR favorite movies about art history? And which artists would you like to see come to life on the big screen?